This senior equity researcher left Credit Suisse

Michael Shillaker, a managing director and the head of steel and mining research, officially departed the Swiss bank after a little over 14 years this January. Shillaker doesn't appear to have a new role to go to and says he's "exploring all options" on his LinkedIn profile.

A 1992 graduate from Southampton University, Shillaker was the head of global steel research at UBS for three years, before joining CS in 2004. Someone of his name was visiting a client on the 72nd floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center when the plane struck. "The American client that we were seeing screamed, 'It's a bomb, it's a bomb – get out'. So we did," a Mike Shillaker told the BBC on 13 September 2001.

Shillaker's exit comes as banks rethink equity research following the MiFID II regulations which require them to charge for research separately. His resignation also comes ahead of Brexit. Credit Suisse has chosen to relocate some London staff to Spanish capital Madrid and others to Frankfurt.

Neither Credit Suisse nor Shillaker himself responded to a request to comment on Shillaker's departure. The bank is due to report its fourth quarter results at the end of this month. In the first nine months of 2018 revenues in Credit Suisse's equities business fell 1% compared to the previous year while most U.S. banks experienced double digit percentage rises. The sweetspot for Credit Suisse has been the equity derivatives business, where revenues rose 70% in the third quarter - implying (given the overall result for the equities division) that the cash business has been floundering.

Shillaker isn't the only one to leave CS in recent months. In December, Jamie Knowles, a London equities sales trader working with hedge fund clients resigned to join Bank of America. Martin Turner, a veteran pan-European director-level sales trader, left the Swiss bank in September 2018 for Australian bank Macquarie.

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